Playing to Win: What the Beautiful Game Can Teach Us About Portfolio Strategy

Image credit: Jeffrey F Lin via Unsplash​

This July, 16 national teams will compete in the UEFA Women’s Euro 2025 in Switzerland. Each will be balancing tactics, talent, and team dynamics to win. The same principles apply to portfolio strategy: success comes from every brand, not just the star players.
The onus is on a strategy that ensures you fight the competition, not each other.
To do this effectively, you need to apply the following tenets of football to portfolio management:

1. Position the right person at the top with the ethos and tools to do the job.

2. Develop a formation and match plan to take on the opposition, based on the players in your team.

3. Select and equip individual players with relevant skills.

Management: The Right Leader, the Right Ethos

Leadership isn’t about being the best; it’s about bringing out the best in others. – Marta Vieira da Silva, Brazil’s all-time top scorer

A strong portfolio begins with strong leadership. While money to buy the best players matters, good managers contribute significantly to a team’s performance, enough to turn mid-table clubs into title contenders or keep relegation-threatened teams safe.

Building a management plan for a portfolio of brands should start by taking the ethos of the holding company into account – what has brought these brands together? At CARAT, we work with a portfolio of premium spirits brands, whose raison d’être is to bring people together for ‘good times’. This steers how we prioritise investment and set our goals for the year ahead. We assess how social moments are changing and work out what role each brand can play to facilitate and inspire.

Great managers also rely on data. In portfolio planning, analytics are your playbook. Invest in modelling capabilities to simulate different investment scenarios and guide strategic decisions.

Tactics: Formation, Fit and Foresight

That’s great, tell him he’s Pelé and get him back on. – John Lambie, on being told a concussed attacker didn’t know who he was.

Whether you favour a classic 4-4-2 or a modern 4-3-3, your formation and match plan needs to work both for the players, and against the competition.

In the drinks industry, we map brands by purpose and occasion. Some beers are premium, others are for the pub session (always responsibly enjoyed). Consumers drink for different reasons - relaxation, celebration, connection. By plotting these moments and associations, we identify white space and avoid internal cannibalisation.
Tactics follow insight. Once you understand the field, you can position each brand to play to its strengths and outmanoeuvre the competition.

Players: Equip Every Brand to Win

The most important thing in football is to never give up and always fight for the ball. – Alex Morgan, rose to fame as a striker for the US Women's National Team

Everyone team needs flair players – but they also need discipline and end product. In portfolio planning, every brand must have:

• A clear, effective plan.
  
• Distinctive creativity to stand out.
  
• Like footballers with GPS trackers, brands need performance metrics. Set KPIs, track progress, and adjust as needed. In saturated markets, creativity is your differentiator.

The Final Score: Strategy, Consistency, and Shared Success

Performance is rooted in analysis and understanding. Know your competition. Know your assets. Build and plan that plays to your strengths.

Momentum and consistency matter. Remember: Manchester United almost sacked Sir Alex Ferguson after a poor start. Success takes time – but it also takes structure. Create frameworks to measure progress and adapt along the way.

And don’t forget your secret weapon: shared learning. In a portfolio company, every brand can benefit from the insights, success, and setbacks of its teammates. Treat your portfolio like a well-drilled team, and you’ll be lifting silverware in no time.

Maddy Sim is strategy managing partner at Carat, a dentsu company